Beauty Underneath
by XxPhoenix FlightxX
Summary: A father/son sort of songfic. not slash. song is Beauty Underneath from Love Never Dies. no pairings, just a one-shot. first upload, so I suck at summaries. Read and Review, please


Xx Beauty Underneath xX

**Author's Note: IMPORTANT! Yeah, most people hate these, but would you rather me explain in the middle of the story? No? Didn't think so. So this is a songfic for the song Beauty Underneath from Love Never Dies. Dedicated to Slade and Jericho. If you've never heard the song, or don't remember it, I recommend reading this once, then going to listen to the song, then reading again with a better understanding. Or read with it playing, if that's how you roll. (yes, that really high part is a boy. A ten-year-old boy, mind you) if the words rhyme and stuff, that's cuz I took the dialogue right from the song.**** Current relationship: haven't seen each other in ten years, each think the other is dead or whatever. Even though Jericho has been a Titan for a few months, neither has encountered the other directly until tonight.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titans, Beauty Underneath, or Love Never Dies, comprende?**

_Words in italics: Slade's thoughts_

_**Italics and bold: Jericho's thoughts**_

Underlined: BOTH of their thoughts (creepy, right?)

The boy was trapped, there was no escape. Slade had him. Him, and the normally-blue-eyed girl whose body he had taken over. She'd been knocked out sometime during the fight, so he'd "jumped in" in order to bring her out alive. But that had been in vain; Slade had no need for two hostages. But perhaps the boy didn't need to_ be_ a hostage. Maybe he would cooperate, come willingly. Dare Slade hope that he could convince this boy to even kill the girl himself? It was all in the words that he said, and he'd had more than enough practice. He just needed to find a weakness in this child.

"Have you ever yearned to go, past the world you think you know? Been enthralled to the call of the beauty underneath? Have you let it draw you in, past the place where dreams begin, felt the full, breathless pull of the beauty underneath?"

He wasn't facing Slade, but from reading his body language (in her body), the man could tell he had his attention. He continued in this direction.

"When the dark unfolds its wings, do you sense the strangest things? Things no one would ever guess. Things mere words cannot express."

"Yes," he answered, whispering in the girl's voice, both ashamed and intrigued at the same time. The boy turned the girl's face over her shoulder, beginning to make eye contact, though not in a way that would allow him to take Slade's body. Slade had not expected a positive reaction, especially so soon, but he ran with it.

"Do you find yourself beguiled by the dangerous and wild? Do you feed on the need for the beauty underneath? Have you felt your senses surge, and surrender to the urge, and been hooked, as you looked at the beauty underneath? When you stare behind the night, can you glimpse its primal might? Might, you hunger to possess. Hunger that you can't repress."

"Yes," Jericho answered his supposed enemy, turning to face him head-on. "It seems so beautiful, so strange, yet beautiful. Everything's just as you say."

Slade's plan was working; words had never served him so well.

_And he's so beautiful. So perfect._

He could tell that there was something already _this_ close to being set loose in the boy's mind, possibly from entering the warped minds of so many villains. It just needed a little nudge, and this boy may actually turn sides. But perhaps the instability of his mental state was hereditary.

_Perhaps too beautiful…__ Too good to be true…_

Slade realized the color of the girl's eyes. He'd noticed before that they were normally blue, but when this boy possessed someone, their eyes became green, just as his were. A very familiar green…

_What I suspect cannot be. My son is dead. And yet__, somehow, we both see the very same way._

The boy broke his thoughts, "Is there music in your head, have you followed where it led, and been graced with the taste of the beauty underneath? Does it fill your every sense? Is it terribly intense? Tell me you need it too, need the beauty underneath."

They were two kindred souls, filled with silent desperation, so much that it hurt.

The young boy continued, "When it lifts its voice and sings-"

"Don't you feel amazing things?"

"Things you know you can't confess…"

"Things you thirst for, nonetheless."

"It sounds so beautiful." The boy was beginning to feel a dark hope. Hope that he wasn't alone in his thoughts.

_Can it be?_

"Almost too beautiful." Jericho found it hard to believe that this could be possible; he was finding things in common with his sworn enemy. "Do you see-"

"What I see?"

"Heavenly…" It was a strangled whisper in the girl's voice. Jericho knew this was wrong, but he'd always felt so alone before now.

_To him it'__s beautiful, my world is beautiful._

_**How can this be what it seems?**_

All of my most secret dreams, somehow set free.

"You can feel it?" The man questions, his suspicions had to be confirmed.

"Yes."

"Come closer."

"Yes."

The boy obeys everything without question. They are alike, Slade knows it. This is his son. But can he tell him so?

"You've no fear of the beauty underneath, you can face it?"

"Yes."

"You can take it."

"Yes!"

His son is ready to know; Slade knows he can take it. He has to tell him.

"You see through to the beauty underneath, to the splendor, and the glory, to the truth of the beauty underneath. You accept it?"

"Yes!"

"You embrace it."

Jericho will accept him, he has to.

"Yes!"

"Let me show you the beauty under-"

Slade takes off his mask, and Jericho cuts him off, screaming the girl's scream, for the horror of seeing his father once again.

**No, that was not a sexual song, or fic, the song is really a father realizing that this kid is his son, and he really does take off his mask at the end of the song. I meant the same for the fic, K? ****Girl with blue eyes? Well when I wrote it, I was thinking of my OC, but I know you all would hate that, so I'll let you think it's Kole, or some other girl with blue eyes. I hope you listen to the song because I don't think I truly captured the full emotion of it with just my words, especially the scream. (Gustave screams like a girl, am I right?) This is my first post (not the first thing I've written, by far) so be nice. Or not, I can take it. Creative criticism is good. Positive comments are great. Flames are used to blow things up in Chemistry class, and not taken seriously. Please review :)**


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